"Sweet Pea" is a bubblegum pop song written and performed by Tommy Roe. It was produced by Gary S. Paxton.^[1] and featured on his 1966 album, Sweet Pea.^[2] In the lyrics, the singer spots a girl at a dance whom her friends call "Sweet Pea." There's no explanation of how she got this nickname. After dancing with her, he suggests they go for a walk where he tells her he loves her and wants her to be his girl.^[3]

Chart performance

The song reached number 1 in Canada,^[4] number 1 in New Zealand, number 7 in Australia,^[5] and number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966.^[6] It ranked number 44 on Billboard magazine's Top Hot 100 songs of 1966.^[7]

Other versions

• The Ventures included an instrumental version on their 1966 album, Wild Things!^[8]
• Roger Williams made it the B-side to his single "Love Me Forever" in April 1967.^[9]
• Friar Tuck recorded it as the B-side to his single "Alley-Oop" in May 1967.^[10]
• Manfred Mann released it as a single in May 1967 that reached number 36 in the United Kingdom.^[11]
• Donald Lautrec put out a single in 1967.^[12]
• Gang Starr sampled Roe's version on their 1989 song "Movin' On" from the album No More Mr. Nice Guy.
• Big Audio Dynamite's song "Rush" samples the drum break from Roe's "Sweet Pea".
• The 2007 re-release of Cub's 1993 album Betti-Cola featured a cover of the song.

In media

• Samantha Morton performs a frenetic dance to the tune in the 1999 film Jesus' Son.^[13]
• The song is also played in the background in two episodes of the Hulu drama mini series, The Girl from Plainville (2022).

References

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